Outrage over rubbish dumping
Sick of the sight of illegally dumped rubbish in South Auckland? You aren’t alone.
Manurewa Local Board member Joseph Allan is calling on Auckland Council to change the way it deals with the problem.
He’s speaking out after seeing a large pile of such waste dumped over the road from a school in Palmers Rd, Clendon Park.
‘‘It’s a matter of pride,’’ he says. ‘‘Particularly for our youth when they come out of school and see their community treated as a landfill.
‘‘I asked students how long it’s been there and they said a couple of months ... ‘‘
The pile included household furniture, luggage, black rubbish bags, bed mattresses and bases, car tyres, and personal items such as photos and bank statements.
Allan says council contractors place a sticker on illegally dumped rubbish, but don’t always remove it immediately.
He wants all rubbish removed straight away and sorted through at another location to see if the dumper can be identified.
‘‘It’s a health and safety issue for the community. Leaving the rubbish there is the wrong thing to do. It’s a magnet for putting [more] rubbish there.’’
Allan says lessons can be learned from the way the former Manukau City Council dealt with the problem of graffiti vandalism.
‘‘It gave the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust a contract to clean up the graffiti as quickly as it went up.
‘‘It took them a long time to get on top of it, but then when they did people stopped doing it. It became less of a problem.’’
Board chairwoman Angela Dalton has been working to stop rubbish being illegally dumped in her community for some time.
She says it was suggested that rubbish should be gone through and the people who dumped it ‘‘named and shamed’’.
‘‘I don’t think they care too much about name and shame. I think they’ve left town.
‘‘We have a responsibility to get it removed. It’s not fair for everyone else in this town to sit and look at the rubbish for months and months.’’
Dalton says a truck may have to be parked in Palmers Rd every day to remove rubbish.
‘‘I know that’s not the end solution. It’s about education, but our residents and especially our young people deserve not to be looking at that everyday when they walk to school.’’
See response from Auckland Council, right.